Rioting in Baltimore after Freddie Gray's Funeral

Ta-Nehisi Coates is a consistently intelligent, insightful voice into a variety of issues - I definitely give a lot of credence to his opinions on this one.

And I've been reading some really compelling arguments about the violent/non-violent dichotomy. I'm a pacifist, but... how long can this shit go on without people exploding?

Interesting livestream on http://livestream.com/timcast/events/4006239

I partly feel like it's sensationalizing the situation, and it's livestream, so there are long stretches of not totally coherent stuff. But it's unfiltered by mass media, which I think is important.

I feel for the cops and firefighters and paramedics who are just trying to do their jobs, but if the cops, at least, had been doing their jobs in the past, they wouldn't be in this mess today.

Captcha said:

I feel for the cops and firefighters and paramedics who are just trying to do their jobs, but if the cops, at least, had been doing their jobs in the past, they wouldn't be in this mess today.

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A lot of people seem to view this as a bunch of angry young men fighting the cops.

Part of it is that, but a lot more of it is a bunch of opportunistic criminals looting stores, taking armloads of goods and throwing them in their cars, burning down and gutting neighborhood stores run by neighborhood people who had nothing to do with the actions of police.

There was a lot of play given to the idea that neighborhood gangs were banding together to fight the police.

Gangs are not the sharks and the jets. They are murderers, thugs who terrorize their neighborhoods, sociopaths who rob people and kill innocent children in the crossfire of the stupid turf wars. Sure, they hate the police – without the police they would be free to run their neighborhoods anyway they pleased.

I understand that many people are angry, and justifiably so. But I really don't understand this romanticism that turns violent thugs into folk heroes of a sort.

Aw, you don't find it heartwarming that the Bloods, Crips and BGF are all coming together, rugcat? I mean, they are probably out singing Kumbaya right now, don't you think?

I don't think there's anything romantic about any of this. I think it's a damn tragedy.

But a big part of the tragedy is that THIS is what it apparently takes for us to pay attention to police brutality and racism. If the only way for people to get their voices heard is by resorting to violence? Nothing romantic about that, no way.

The police have been at war with the citizens since the 70s. Their mentality has morphed from "protect and serve" to "search and destroy." The streets are filled, not with people, but with potential perps. They have the authority to use violence against almost anybody for almost anything, down to selling loose cigarettes from a pack. Peaceful pleas to curb the warriors in the streets come to nothing. Egregious violations of basic rights are met with denial, stonewalling, cover-up, and, as necessary, outright perversion of the so-called justice system to assure the blame rests anywhere but on those anointed knights. Peaceful protests are met too often with violence, and restricted by authorities to "free speech zones." Elections are sad charades allowing only for the selection of pre-approved candidates.

What options are left to the people but violence? It's relatively easy for the middle-class in the suburbs to disengage from the violence of the system. For the poor in the inner cities? Not so much. What tools do they have to fight fire, but fire?

backslashbaby said:

My brother used to live right there where buildings are burning, for over a decade. He moved to the 'burbs there last year, thank God.

I don't know how to put my thoughts on what the cops must have done or on the riots. It's Baltimore. Nobody there will be surprised. That's not a good thing in either case, of course!

But I don't think the riots are as big a deal as it looks, either. Because it's Baltimore. People there are just tough. There are gangs, murders, etc. They can handle a few riots, I'm sure.

I'm very glad to see the cops not taking advantage. That would be my big fear with all this right now.

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I remember back when I attended UMBC in the early-mid eighties and was coming into the city by Greyhound, the Orioles had just won the World Series and the streets were filled with unruly mobs and there was a car on fire.

Captcha said:

But a big part of the tragedy is that THIS is what it apparently takes for us to pay attention to police brutality and racism. If the only way for people to get their voices heard is by resorting to violence? Nothing romantic about that, no way.

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Disagree. This--violence and looting--is not what it takes, at all. In fact, this kind of reaction only serves to harden lines, to buttress bs racist-type arguments.

Non-violent protests can--and do--get plenty of attention, especially as compared to the past, what with the internet and all.

backslashbaby said:

My brother used to live right there where buildings are burning, for over a decade. He moved to the 'burbs there last year, thank God.

I don't know how to put my thoughts on what the cops must have done or on the riots. It's Baltimore. Nobody there will be surprised. That's not a good thing in either case, of course!

But I don't think the riots are as big a deal as it looks, either. Because it's Baltimore. People there are just tough. There are gangs, murders, etc. They can handle a few riots, I'm sure.

I'm very glad to see the cops not taking advantage. That would be my big fear with all this right now.

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I live in a neighborhood not too far from the rioting. It's very unlikely they will spread this far, but I do keep an eye on the proceedings...

Baltimore as a city is not quite as fucked as Detroit, but it's in deep economic distress, kept afloat mostly by virtue of the fact that the rest of Maryland is pretty rich. And of course police relations have never been good. David Simon's Homicide: Life on the Streets, written in 1991 and the basis for several TV shows, covered the city from a relatively sympathetic (to the cops) point of view, but it was still deeply cynical and pessimistic in turn, and I think a lot hasn't changed.

Saying "Baltimore is tough, this is no big deal" does a disservice, I think.

I drive through Baltimore and I see nice neighborhoods (usually being gentrified), and the Inner Harbor is lovely. But occasionally I take a wrong turn and speed through areas where you could still film episodes of The Wire.

There's justified anger, yes. There are also a lot of predatious gangs, and a substantial portion of the citizenry that is a victim of generational dysfunctional.

Looting a store isn't protest. It's crime.

I get the anger. I share it. I can at least sympathize with expressing it against police and their vehicles, even as I condemn it.

But attacking fellow citizens and their property? Some of the folks in the pictures are even bragging about what they've done. Those criminals are part of the problem.

rugcat said:

A lot of people seem to view this as a bunch of angry young men fighting the cops.

Part of it is that, but a lot more of it is a bunch of opportunistic criminals looting stores, taking armloads of goods and throwing them in their cars, burning down and gutting neighborhood stores run by neighborhood people who had nothing to do with the actions of police.

There was a lot of play given to the idea that neighborhood gangs were banding together to fight the police.

Gangs are not the sharks and the jets. They are murderers, thugs who terrorize their neighborhoods, sociopaths who rob people and kill innocent children in the crossfire of the stupid turf wars. Sure, they hate the police – without the police they would be free to run their neighborhoods anyway they pleased.

I understand that many people are angry, and justifiably so. But I really don't understand this romanticism that turns violent thugs into folk heroes of a sort.

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Word.

I'm always impressed that they destroy their own communities instead of going to where the rich peeps are and taking out THOSE stores.

That CVS and Rite Aid? Won't be back for at least a year. Meanwhile the locals who had their prescriptions there, who worked there, who needed that store there, have nothing. Those businesses? Might stay, might just cut and run if they don't feel their community will protect them from the rabble looking to destroy and loot night after night.

I doubt most of those punks had even the smallest inkling about Gray and his abuse at the hands of the police. They saw the chance to steal and destroy and jumped on it with both hands. They're not "expressing themselves", they're stealing from hard-working members of their own community who struggled to get that pharmacy in there, to give people jobs and to help those less fortunate who maybe don't want to be drug dealers and thieves.

These thugs aren't doing it for any great social cause. They're doing it because they can get away with it because they know the cops are being held back by the politics of the moment.

So they'll continue to burn and destroy the very people who could help them develop a better community.

JMO.

Sheryl Nantus said:

Word.

I'm always impressed that they destroy their own communities instead of going to where the rich peeps are and taking out THOSE stores.

That CVS and Rite Aid? Won't be back for at least a year. Meanwhile the locals who had their prescriptions there, who worked there, who needed that store there, have nothing. Those businesses? Might stay, might just cut and run if they don't feel their community will protect them from the rabble looking to destroy and loot night after night.

I doubt most of those punks had even the smallest inkling about Gray and his abuse at the hands of the police. They saw the chance to steal and destroy and jumped on it with both hands. They're not "expressing themselves", they're stealing from hard-working members of their own community who struggled to get that pharmacy in there, to give people jobs and to help those less fortunate who maybe don't want to be drug dealers and thieves.

These thugs aren't doing it for any great social cause. They're doing it because they can get away with it because they know the cops are being held back by the politics of the moment.

So they'll continue to burn and destroy the very people who could help them develop a better community.

JMO.

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What made me most upset is when I found out they burned a church-funded nursing home last night. These riots are just an excuse to create chaos and only makes the situation ten times worse.

But I did see a rioter's mother scolding him and dragging him out of the street. I think everybody's mother ought to be doing the same for destroying the city and neighborhood they live in. The rioters are only kicking themselves in the arse with all this.

robeiae said:

Non-violent protests can--and do--get plenty of attention, especially as compared to the past, what with the internet and all.

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True, and then? Attention is one thing. Justice is another.

My husband has very little time to watch the news. I clue him into the major issues and events I think he should know about, and he does his best to catch up and be informed on his own, but the man has almost no free time. I asked him last night how many unarmed black men he has seen die on camera at the hands of police just recently. How many unarmed black men and women he has heard of who have died at the hands of police just recently. His list wasn't as long as mine, but it was long. And then we talked about the outcomes in each case, which I have followed. Not much accountability or justice to be found. But there were peaceful protests. I dragged my twisted, feeble body to a few. There was some media attention. And, still, not much accountability or justice to be found.

Again, I do not condone the violence, but when you keep protesting peacefully and go home and watch another young black man with a toy gun shot on sight by police, and then a black child with a toy gun shot on sight, and read about black handcuffed men who are said to have shot themselves in the head in police cruisers, and there are no charges, and you read about a police shooting and a few days later, after a lawyer fights for it (and what about those who can't hire a lawyer) a video is released that shows the police were lying but still, no charges, what do you? Or you've seen that charges rarely result in convictions. You've protested peacefully again and again. I hardly know what to do with my anger, and I am a well-off white lady who gets nothing but smiles and help across the street from the police.

Lyv said:

Again, I do not condone the violence, but when you keep protesting peacefully and go home and watch another young black man with a toy gun shot on sight by police, and then a black child with a toy gun shot on sight, and read about black handcuffed men who are said to have shot themselves in the head in police cruisers, and there are no charges, and you read about a police shooting and a few days later, after a lawyer fights for it (and what about those who can't hire a lawyer) a video is released that shows the police were lying but still, no charges, what do you? Or you've seen that charges rarely result in convictions. You've protested peacefully again and again. I hardly know what to do with my anger, and I am a well-off white lady who gets nothing but smiles and help across the street from the police.

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Are you suggesting that the people perpetrating the violence and destruction in Baltimore have tried protesting peacefully again and again, and are now finally resorting to violence?

Lyv said:

Again, I do not condone the violence, but when you keep protesting peacefully and go home and watch another young black man with a toy gun shot on sight by police, and then a black child with a toy gun shot on sight, and read about black handcuffed men who are said to have shot themselves in the head in police cruisers, and there are no charges, and you read about a police shooting and a few days later, after a lawyer fights for it (and what about those who can't hire a lawyer) a video is released that shows the police were lying but still, no charges, what do you? Or you've seen that charges rarely result in convictions. You've protested peacefully again and again. I hardly know what to do with my anger, and I am a well-off white lady who gets nothing but smiles and help across the street from the police.

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I have to agree here. Yes, there are some opportunists in Baltimore taking advantage of the disruption to do a huge amount of damage, but let's not forget what's really behind this: decades - centuries - of a system that is brutally unfair to the point of being deadly. None of this has happened in a vacuum, and none of it started with one man's death. Society has built this, and we should be ashamed, not surprised.

What do we do? Violence doesn't help. Peace doesn't help. What do we do?

I'm sorry, Amadan. I don't mean it's not a big deal, just that it might not be as surprising or terrifying as in a place where the folks aren't used to knowing which areas to avoid, etc. Ferguson is much smaller, and I was thinking of that. I would expect that their riots were a 'bigger deal' to them overall because of size alone, even. But it's a bad phrase to use at all, even if I meant it as compliment to the folks' resilience, really.


I haven't heard many folks (Twitter, etc) remark on how the race issue is different in Baltimore, y'all. There is representation in government and high positions in law enforcement, etc. This isn't like Ferguson that way. Black officers are feared in B'more, too. I was thinking it's about hideous police brutality and poverty, gangs, etc, but it sounds as if the narrative is the same? Racism is extremely key? I'm not sure I understand

People really were saying how beautiful it was to see the picture of the gangs together, because 'unity'. That's not people from Baltimore itself, I hope! It just makes no sense.

robeiae said:

Are you suggesting that the people perpetrating the violence and destruction in Baltimore have tried protesting peacefully again and again, and are now finally resorting to violence?

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Some have, I am sure. And some have simply seen peaceful protests fail time and again. And locals have been watching this story play out since Freddie Gray was killed by police. He died on April 19th. Some locals watched him or watched the video of him being dragged, obviously injured, to the van while bystanders screamed to police that he was hurt. They saw a delay in medical care, now admitted, and they saw that the investigation was delayed, so evidence was lost. Yes, there were people peacefully demanding answers that never came for days before rioting broke out.

I'm seeing this post spread around, and it would explain why I saw so many kids on the streets in reports. Baltimore is showing the same brilliant thinking as Ferguson.

raburrell said:

Apologies in advance, because I'm pretty sure I'm going to botch what I want to say here, but the focus in the OP on the riots instead of a more complete picture of the situation on the ground bothers me. That's not to slag on the OP, but at least from the reports I've seen, the protesters outnumber the rioters by wide margins and this is yet another egregious case and those protesters have valid concerns. We don't have another thread on Gray, I don't think, so this is it AFAIK.

When violence erupts, it's certainly worthy of discussion, but I think it's important to keep a balanced perspective.

Just my .02.

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It's a valid point.

Anyone who is outraged by the lawlessness, the burning, the looting, the violence, and the rage but is not outraged at what happened to Freddie Gray, has the wrong priorities and I don't care about your outrage.

A riot is a terrible, terrible thing, but riots are often caused by terrible, terrible things.

I condemn the rioting. I don't have to apologize for it.

To me, the rioting is unfortunate. Although I understand the fury of the residents, the rioting is used to undermine the point that there are over-the top and out-of-control cops who need to be disciplined.

All the riots do is tell the law-and-order types that the cops were right, no matter what.

MLK was effective BECAUSE of the nonviolence. He forced whites seeing the news reports to only see the state sanctioned violence.

And I will be cynical enough to think that the cops planted agents provocateurs in the crowds to sow the seeds of violence. The cops know damn well that faced with peaceful crowds their range of action becomes circumscribed. Remember the term 'lynch mob' that was applied by a union rep to the then peaceful marchers a few days ago?

(And yes, I DO realize that there are good cops, lots of them. But like the rioters who undermine the peaceful protesters, bad cops also undermine the good ones.)

I am not outraged by the riots. Of course the individual rioters are entirely responsible for their individual actions, and they are criminals and should be prosecuted. But a riot isn't just a bunch of individual bad choices - it's a product. Almost a natural disaster - to be angry at individuals because a riot happens is kind of like being angry at the rocks that fall during an earthquake.


Along the Paris streets, the death-carts rumble, hollow and harsh. Six tumbrils carry the day's wine to La Guillotine. All the devouring and insatiate Monsters imagined since imagination could record itself, are fused in the one realisation, Guillotine. And yet there is not in France, with its rich variety of soil and climate, a blade, a leaf, a root, a sprig, a peppercorn, which will grow to maturity under conditions more certain than those that have produced this horror. Crush humanity out of shape once more, under similar hammers, and it will twist itself into the same tortured forms. Sow the same seed of rapacious license and oppression over again, and it will surely yield the same fruit according to its kind.

Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

Resistance isn't always rational.

I was never a police hater or even much of a police skeptic, you guys. Sure, I believed in bad apples and bad laws—especially concentrated on/around bad policy, like the drug war—but I still believed the vast majority of individual cops and law enforcement agents were basically good. And they still may be, but it doesn't really matter in the face of a system that's so thoroughly stacked, at all levels, against the vulnerable and disenfranchised, as well as toward the perpetuation of its own power and unaccountability.
...
I don't necessarily think most cops or prosecutors are bad people, but they're fucked (as are we all) by a sweeping, self-perpetuating schemata that knows but one problem and one solution: bad guys and more (thorough) more (prisons) more (funds) more (fear) more (MORE) law enforcement.
...
All I'm really trying to say is there's a binary in blame that's both all too prevalent and all too unproductive. We needn't endorse the means of desperate people to acknowledge their ends are worth fighting for, nor must imperfect acts of resistance prove the roots of this resistance unworthy. Condemning the counter-productiveness of such acts is fine, but it shouldn't ignore the context these imperfect acts take place in. Sometimes people take to the streets not with well-planned political agendas or thoughts to how it will play out on Twitter but with a raw, terrified, excitable, and justified anger at an unjust state.

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Amadan said:

I am not outraged by the riots. Of course the individual rioters are entirely responsible for their individual actions, and they are criminals and should be prosecuted. But a riot isn't just a bunch of individual bad choices - it's a product. Almost a natural disaster - to be angry at individuals because a riot happens is kind of like being angry at the rocks that fall during an earthquake.

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Rocks don't have free will. Riots aren't natural disasters, they're man-made disasters. People can make choices. 10,000 people made the choice to peacefully protest over the last few days. Their voices were drowned out by a few hundred punks looting stores, torching cars, injuring cops and slicing fire hoses. And this is what will be remembered. Nothing but reinforced prejudices. That's something to be angry about.

onuilmar said:

To me, the rioting is unfortunate. Although I understand the fury of the residents, the rioting is used to undermine the point that there are over-the top and out-of-control cops who need to be disciplined.

All the riots do is tell the law-and-order types that the cops were right, no matter what.

MLK was effective BECAUSE of the nonviolence. He forced whites seeing the news reports to only see the state sanctioned violence.

And I will be cynical enough to think that the cops planted agents provocateurs in the crowds to sow the seeds of violence. The cops know damn well that faced with peaceful crowds their range of action becomes circumscribed. Remember the term 'lynch mob' that was applied by a union rep to the then peaceful marchers a few days ago?

(And yes, I DO realize that there are good cops, lots of them. But like the rioters who undermine the peaceful protesters, bad cops also undermine the good ones.)

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I hope you're wrong about the planted "agents provocateurs," although with all these tragic stories come to light, it's natural to lose trust in the current system.

I am feeling my age and sadness. Technically, I'm only middle-aged, but with my health issues I'm unlikely to see my sixties. I feel I'm seeing a rerun of my childhood with all this. And I know we've made progress since then, it cannot be as bad as that now. That said, current cases do shake me. Innocent people have been killed by police, and that should never happen. I'd still like to think most are not corrupt or evil, however.

I do think Nonviolence, as practiced by MLK and people of that day, including one of my uncles who was a young seminary student at that time, was powerful. I think it opened eyes, and it also awed people who saw. The immense strength of nonviolence is almost Divine.

In my lifetime, I've seen a lot of pain and sorrow through violence. It's my personal experience, as well as that of others I know. My heart breaks when young people die for no reason. Anger and grief are normal reactions. At my age, grief comes out a little more pure, and not as touched with other things.

My heart also breaks when violence is seen as a solution, or even as powerful. To me, it's more a part of the disease. As a nation, we need a cure. People think non-violence is unrealistic, but it works. Show me violence that works to help. I haven't seen it.

I thought last night, there were actually many examples of courage. A father rushing into a burning building to save his child. Peaceful marchers who did remain peaceful, so powerful still. I saw one group singing, "I'm going to treat everybody right, til I die."

There were people who tried their best to protect or undo the damage when they found it. Obviously, there's a lot of humanity left in Baltimore. There are a lot of causes for riots, too.

I think one solution to one underlying problem is coming, is even here in some cases. Video cameras everywhere. We have to keep our cellphones charged and ready, and I don't mind stopping to film a police interaction. If they get violent with me, I guess that will be my moment for courage. We can at least bear witness.

Amadan said:

Baltimore as a city is not quite as fucked as Detroit, but it's in deep economic distress, kept afloat mostly by virtue of the fact that the rest of Maryland is pretty rich. And of course police relations have never been good. David Simon's Homicide: Life on the Streets, written in 1991 and the basis for several TV shows, covered the city from a relatively sympathetic (to the cops) point of view, but it was still deeply cynical and pessimistic in turn, and I think a lot hasn't changed.

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David Simon weighs in.

First things first.

Yes, there is a lot to be argued, debated, addressed. And this moment, as inevitable as it has sometimes seemed, can still, in the end, prove transformational, if not redemptive for our city.
Changes are necessary and voices need to be heard. All of that is true and all of that is still possible, despite what is now loose in the streets.

But now — in this moment — the anger and the selfishness and the brutality of those claiming the right to violence in Freddie Gray’s name needs to cease. There was real power and potential in the peaceful protests that spoke in Mr. Gray’s name initially, and there was real unity at his homegoing today. But this, now, in the streets, is an affront to that man’s memory and a dimunition of the absolute moral lesson that underlies his unnecessary death.

If you can’t seek redress and demand reform without a brick in your hand, you risk losing this moment for all of us in Baltimore. Turn around. Go home. Please.